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It is no wonder the Germanic Church is leading efforts to dismantle Dogma March 24, 2014

Posted by Tantumblogo in abdication of duty, Basics, catachesis, disaster, episcopate, General Catholic, horror, Liturgy, sadness, scandals, secularism, self-serving, sickness, Society, the return.
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I have seen widely posted that Cardinal Burke, God bless him, has taken a strong stand against Cardinal Kasper, Cardinal Marx, and other Germanic prelates who have, since the election of Pope Francis, gone on a full scale offensive to obliterate the Church’s moral doctrine, at least as applies to human sexuality.  As Cardinal Burke notes, the Church’s refusal to accept divorce and remarriage – without a valid annulment – is based on Christ’s own words, and that opposition to bigamy has been a constant tenet of Catholic belief since the inception of the Church.  In fact, the Church has suffered immensely for this belief, even allowing whole countries to be stripped away from the Church rather than cave in on this belief, which is so counter to our times:

I do think Cardinal Burke makes quite a revelation here, pointing out that the deliberations of the preparatory meeting of the bishops for the Synod were supposed to be secret.  But the modernist element in the Church obviously saw advantages to creating still more expectation, still more pressure, so they leaked the entire speech Kasper gave to the press.  Most signs point to that leak coming from Cardinal Kasper himself, although I must say – and I really do prefer to do so, but it  is so key it cannot be avoided – Pope Francis has not helped matter since he have a more or less blanket endorsement of Kasper’s speech and has heaped lauds on the retired Cardinal since that preparatory meeting occurred (I know……so much for not being topical or controversial.  Shoot me).

How can the Church in the German speaking countries be so lost. How can a good 30-40% of both prelates and priests in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, etc have become out and out apostates, promoting heretical beliefs not just on bigamy, but on contraception, fornication, fauxrdination of women, and a host of other topics?  Going back decades, some of the most disastrous trends, “pastoral” solutions, approaches to theology, and general practice of the Faith have come from the Germanic countries.  The Germanic bloc was almost entirely responsible for the more disquieting aspects of Vatican II.

I know why.  To a very large extent, the Church is the Mass and the Mass is the Church.  But it was in the Germanic countries (while also bleeding into nearby territories, like eastern France, Belgium, and a few other locales) where the desire to “reform” the Liturgy first took shape in the years after WWII.  It was also in the Germanic countries, so deranged by all manner of perverted philosophies from such disastrous men as Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Luther, Heidigger, et. al., that modernism in the Church found its strongest adherents and fullest flower.  Even by the mid-1920s, there were all manner of abusive, possibly even invalid Masses in Germany, with many of the more deplorable aspects of the Novus Ordo common even then.  And that disastrous practice continues to this day.

See below, from one of the most modernist dioceses not only in the Germanic countries, but in the world, Linz:

 

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A few things to note: the female “pastoral assistants” or “worship directors” or whatever are regular features of many Masses in Germany and Austria.  Note that all the servers are little girls, some of them very little.  The priest, I am certain, views himself as nothing more than a “presider,” and looks forward to the day when Ms. Pantsuit can take her “rightful” place as priestessess.

Masses like this occur weekly, dang near daily, somewhere in the Netherlands, Germany, or Austria.  I have read reports that virtually every Mass at most parishes in German-speaking Holland are basically run by women, with completely screwed up Liturgy, non-existent observance of the rubrics, lay people reading from the newspaper for the “homily,” and pop songs sung instead of hymns.

Is it possible to have the Faith of Jesus Christ and the Church He established while turning the Mass into a mockery?  Is it any wonder we see so many errors emanating from the German-speaking countries when the bishops themselves have so long not just ignored, nor tolerated, but openly endorsed such travesties in a desperate bid to somehow attract a few more souls to Mass (or, far more importantly from their perspective, convinced a few more souls to pay the Church tax)?

It’s no surprise to me.  Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi.  We live as we believe and we believe as we pray, and the chief prayer of the Church, the Mass, has been in a deplorable state in most Germanic parishes for decades.

The only surprise left, is finding out how much damage will be done before somehow, please Lord, an end comes to these nightmares.

 

Oh my God……British hospitals incinerating babies for heat March 24, 2014

Posted by Tantumblogo in abdication of duty, Abortion, Basics, contraception, disaster, error, General Catholic, horror, sadness, scandals, secularism, self-serving, sickness, Society, unadulterated evil.
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Lord, have mercy on us.  We are a wicked and evil people.

The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found.

Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning foetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.

Last night the Department of Health issued an instant ban on the practice which health minister Dr Dan Poulter branded ‘totally unacceptable.’

At least 15,500 foetal remains were incinerated by 27 NHS trusts over the last two years alone, Channel 4’s Dispatches discovered.

The programme, which will air tonight, found that parents who lose children in early pregnancy were often treated without compassion and were not consulted about what they wanted to happen to the remains.

I’ve said it a lot lately, but it needs saying again: there is no limit to the depravity to which people will sink when they reject God.  And Britain, sadly, has been towards the forefront of that rejection.

Once a culture decides that it is acceptable to kill babies in the womb (for now, soon it won’t be just babies, nor in the womb) essentially for reasons of convenience………well why not use their little bodies created by God for fuel?  It gets cold in England, dangit, and babies produce a lot less gerbal worming carbon dioxide than coal!  It’s win-win!

This is so close to the Matrix it isn’t even funny.  In that movie, improbably thoughtful from a couple of truly disturbed men (one isn’t even a man anymore), a sentient artificial intelligence has enslaved all of humanity for our collective bio-electric energy. In essence, humans are a giant battery for the machine-slavers to live on.  And this is different how?

And it wasn’t just aborted babies, either. It was also babies who died prematurely or in miscarriages.  The article speaks of how callously the officials at the National Health Service, created by the socialist Clement Atlee in 1946, treat the parents who have lost children.

Well, guess what?  To hardcore socialists, people are just a resource of the state, to be taken from and given to as the state sees fit, including the ability to live at all.  If there are too many people, in the minds of the socialist statists, then we’ll just abort/kill a few million.  We’ve seen socialist states do this too many times to count.  So should there be surprise that they treat the dead babies, or the parents feelings, of any more consequence than one would give to a lump of coal?

Socialism as a belief system stems directly from the radical beliefs of the 18th century endarkenment philosphes.  Those philosphes hated God, hated the Church, and sought to create a form of government that would, over time, see to its destruction.  But any system divorced from God and His Church ultimately comes from satan. And satan loves to see dead people, and people treated like literal garbage, to be burned.  Socialism helps make that a reality better than any other scam the dark one has ever devised.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by these things.  But it’s shocking, nonetheless, to see how callous and evil people can become once they forget God.

The Glory of True Feminine Dignity March 24, 2014

Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, Domestic Church, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Holy suffering, Interior Life, priests, religious, Saints, sanctity, Society, Tradition, Victory, Virtue.
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In the sermon below, the priest addresses the subject of spiritual motherhood for priests as being an enormous source of true feminine dignity.  That is to say, women, by fulfilling their God-ordained role as natural and spiritual mothers have a substantial – in some ways, decisive – influence on the completion of priestly vocations.  But this requires cooperation with Grace and willing submission to the roles God has ordained for women.

As we all know, the vast majority of women today refuse to accept both their role as spiritual mothers and true feminine dignity.  Most women today have fallen for feminist rhetoric, so steeped in envy, pride, and wrath, that they have no conception of where their dignity lies.  True dignity lies in being a spiritual mother, which, combined with natural motherhood, gives women all creative power that is possible for humans.

Women are called to be a living icon of the Church and the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Such an august role!   Only a monstrous lie could confuse women into thinking that being just like men is their only path to freedom, empowerment, and dignity.  I would say, a diabolical lie.  It is such a tragedy when furious feminists claim that because women are not men and thus cannot be priests, there is some terrible injustice.  But the most exalted human that ever lived is a woman, and all women are called to emulate Her. In doing so, they have a huge influence on every aspect of the Church.  But feminism is not about holiness, it is about power, one of the three things satan used to tempt Our Blessed Lord Himself.

One tiny village produced 323 vocations -152 priests, 171 nuns, all due to a concerted effort on the part of women to spiritual motherhood!  The mothers prayed before the Blessed Sacrament once a week (Memorare, Litany of Sacred Heart), to pray for vocations, made a monthly communion for vocations, and also said a daily prayer towards the same end.  As the priest says……how hard is that?

It’s a pretty sad testimony that the priest noted with surprise that a Vatican Congregation produced a document of substantial value and even sublime content.  Such used to be as common as could be, but now they are surprising events.

It was my great pleasure to introduce this priest to some family this weekend.  Man we need more like him.

Also, I heard a tree-mendous sermon yesterday that I pray Video Sancto puts up soon.

 

Humility the basis of the spiritual life March 24, 2014

Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Interior Life, mortification, religious, Saints, sanctity, Tradition, true leadership, Victory.
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One of my goals during Lent was to try to make the blog less topical and less scandal-oriented, and to focus on what I hope are non-controversial aspects of the practice of the interior life.  I know I have not succeeded terribly well in that goal, the whole Fisher-More thing blew up and there have been other deviations into matters of scandal.  But the great DivineOffice-Magnificat1thing about Lent is that we have 6 weeks to try, try again.  I may fly off the handle this afternoon, but for now, even as I watch my traffic plummet, I’ll try to stick to material that I hope holds unassailable benefit for souls.

I plan – God willing – on doing a series of posts from Divine Intimacy on the great virtue of humility this week. Humility is not something that happens accidentally, or comes from a solitary conversion experience (save for a few extraordinary cases).  Humility is hard work, and extremely counter to our natures and the culture that surrounds us.  Day 106, Humility:

Charity is the essence of Christian perfection, for charity alone has the power to unite man to God, his last end.  But for us poor, miserable creatures, whom God wishes to raise to union with Himself, is 461893106charity the ultimate basis of the spiritual life? No. There is something deeper still which is, so to speak, the basis of charity, and that is humility.  Humility is to charity what the foundation is to a building.  Digging the foundation is not building the house, yet it is the preliminary, indispensable work, the condition sine qua non.  The deeper and firmer it is, the better the house will be and the greater assurance of stability it will have. Only the fool “built his house upon the sand,” with the inevitable consequence of seeing it crubmel away very son. The wise man, on the contrary, “built……upon a rock” (Mt VII:24-26); storms and winds might threaten, but his house was unshakable because its foundation was solid.

Humility is the firm bedrock upon which every Christian should build the edifice of his spiritual life. “If you wish to lay good foundations,” says St. Teresa of Jesus to her daughters, “each of you must try to be the least of all” that is, you must practice humility.  “If you do that……your foundation will be so firmly laid that your Castle will not fail”nla (Interior Castle, VII, 4). Humility forms the foundation of charity by emptying the soul of pride, arrogance, disordered love of self and of one’s own excellence, and by replacing them with the love of God and our neighbor.  

The more humility empties the soul of the vain, proud pretenses of self, the more room there will be for God. “When at last [the spiritual man] comes to be reduced to nothing, which will be the greatest extreme of humility, spiritual union will be wrought between the soul and god” (St. Juan de la Cruz, Ascent of Mt. Carmel, 7, 11).

The soul who desires to reach the sublime heights of union with God must walk in the path of profound humility, for as the Divine Master taught, only “the that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Lk Nun_prayingXVIII:14).

The higher the ideal of sanctity to which we aspire, the more sublime the end toward which we tend, the more we will have to descend and excavate in ourselves the fertile abyss of humility. “Abyssus abyssum invocat” (Ps XLIV:8); the abyss of humility calls to the abyss of infinite mercy, of Grace, and of the divine Gifts, for “God resisteth the proud, but to the humble He giveth Grace” (1 Pt V:5). We must humble ourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, sincerely recognize our nothingness, take account of our poverty; and if we wish to glorify ourselves, we must glory, like St. Paul, solely in our infirmities. It is only in our weakness, humbly acknowledged, that Grace and Divine Virtue work and triumph (cf 2 COR XII:9). Even if we are of the number of those good souls who sincerely desire to advance on the road to perfection, but who are relying too much on their own powers and personal initiative, we can apply to ourselves to great advantage the valuable warning that St. Therese of the Child Jesus gave a novice: “I see clearly that you are taking the wrong road; you will never reach the end of your journey.  You 831acf538213455fd7d2067308224cefwant to scale a mountain, and the good God wills to make you descend….It is Jesus who takes upon Himself to fill your soul according as you ride it of imperfections.” (St. Therese of the Child Jesus, Counsels and Souvenirs? [I do not know what this reference is. I can not find it] ). [The guidance given here is tremendous. There is a great temptation that many faithful Catholics fall into which combines a certain pride and self-reliance.  Because we have the Traditional Mass, because we have recourse to great confessors, because we avail ourselves of the Sacraments often, we may begin to think that we are holy, or that we are doing good things of our own. But any good we do is, first off, mere cooperation with Grace. We cannot do any good absent Grace.  Furthermore, and proud thoughts along this line just steer us away from the true practice of virtue and are of course deadly to humility.  There thCAJTQQISis a certain paradox, in order to ascend, we must descend, meaning, we must die to ourselves and the world and let God (Grace) work in us, to mold us into the creatures of virtue and light He so desires us to be.  This is a trap that many fall into, thinking they are doing very well when in actuality some secret (or not so secret) pride is robbing them of all the great Graces they should be accumulating and cooperating with.  The point is, we can’t save ourselves. All we can do is cooperate with Grace, but it is soooo easy to forget that the virtue we practice, the fast we perform, isn’t really “us,” it’s God, working through us.]

The sublime ideal of union with God totally exceeds our capacities, which are those of weak creatures.  If we aspire to it, it is not because we expect to reach it by our own efforts and initiative, but because we trust that God Himself, according to His promise, will come and lead us by the hand. But God will not act thus with a proud soul. He stoops only to the humble; the more lowly He finds a soul, the closer He draws it to Himself. Humility deepens the soul’s capacity to receive the fullness of Divine Gifts. 

[St. Therese of the Child Jesus] “Oh my God, You make me realize how far I must descend in order that my heart may serve as a dwelling place for You; I must become so poor that I have no place whereon to lay my head. My heart is not wholly emptied of self, and that is why You order me to descend. Oh! I want to descend much lower, so that You will be able to rest Your Divine Head in my heart, and know that there You are loved and understood.  O sweet, Divine Guest, You know my misery; that is why You come to me in the hope of finding an empty tabernacle, a heart wholly emptied of self. This is all You ask.”

One of the most glorious Saints in the history of the Church, humbly scrubbing clothes on her knees, with a small smile on her face.  Greatness.

One of the most glorious Saints in the history of the Church, humbly scrubbing clothes on her knees, with a small smile on her face. Greatness.

 

 

Becoming a Saint does not require martyrdom or other extraordinary acts March 24, 2014

Posted by Tantumblogo in awesomeness, Basics, catachesis, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Interior Life, mortification, Saints, sanctity, Tradition, true leadership, Virtue.
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There is a temptation at times to think that in order to become a Saint we have to perform some extraordinary acts. Maybe we read about certain Saints and the incredible, even miraculous things they did, and we might think, at least a bit, that such acts are a “requirement” for sanctity.  And, we have the world which presents very unlikely things like superheroes and constantly holds the Church to a standard of sanctity that is essentially impossibly john-boscohigh, and then castigates the Church for failing to meet its own false, externally imposed standard.  Awash in this culture as we are, it’s possible that tendency can affect our own thinking on sanctity.

And then there is the temptation to be overly severe with ourselves, to think that we must be so perfect in all areas that we practice extreme fasts/penances and actually harm our health.  Such was the case of a young Dominic Savio.  Fortunately, Savio had for his priest and director another Saint, John Bosco, who ordered Savio to abandon these overly strict practices and laid out for him a suggested course of action which, if followed faithfully, would assure the young lad’s sanctity.  These acts included:

  • to fulfill the duties of his state (in this case, being a schoolboy)
  • to do good to companions who by nature are displeasing (both performing charity and mortifying the self)
  • to forgive those who are vulgar or rude (ditto)
  • to consume all food or drink at meals and not to waste anything (good, practical advice, but also mortifying when the cauliflower comes out.  Priests of traditional orders are famous for doing this)
  • to study all subjects at school, even those that are not appealing (or, performing all the duties of one’s vocation, no matter how unappealing some may be)
  • to be humble when others are chosen before you for favorite tasks or privileges (or whenever we don’t get our way)
  • never to complain about the weather, but rather thank God for it (this is a good one!  I realized I did this a lot and now bite my tongue more)
  • to be bright and cheerful when inclined to be otherwise
  • to take advantage of every opportunity to show love for Jesus Christ
  • “Obedience is your greatest possible sacrifice”

Those are all great recommendations, and if followed sure to develop habits of mortification and virtue.  This is very similar to the guidance St. Therese of the Child Jesus gives us in her path to sanctification, which was to do all things, even if they are only very small things, with great love.  If we have genuine love in our hearts for all that we do, that alone will advance us mightily in the process of sanctification.  But some of us have very long habits of self-serving and recourse to pride that are very difficult to have that love in our hearts.

Holy suffering begets meekness. Meekness begets humility.  Humility begets charity.  Charity begets sanctification. Sanctification is what we should all desire with our whole hearts.

bosco

Many souls received the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit this weekend! March 24, 2014

Posted by Tantumblogo in Admin, awesomeness, Basics, Domestic Church, family, fun, General Catholic, Glory, Grace, Sacraments, Tradition, Virtue.
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I think close to thirty souls received Confirmation this weekend in the traditional Rite, and as splendid as it was to assist at this amazing supernatural reception of Grace for anyone, two of them were especially dear to me:

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These girls studied hard and really knew their stuff!  They passed their examination with no difficulties.

I greatly appreciate the sponsors and families that traveled long distances for this most auspicious event.  And those that did not travel very far.  Having a lot of family around made it all the more special.  I thank them for that.

If we keep having big families, eventually, we will win.  It was very edifying to see so many children present for Confirmation from one traditional parish.

Like the dresses?  You can contact marymyway for info.